Damaged Differential

[ronmarabito2002]

All:

We left Dallas yesterday evening and spent the night in
McAlister, OK. When we crossed the Red River, Shirley noticed a
thumping sound. Since my hearing is pretty bad, I didn't hear it
for a while.

When we departed McAlister this morning, it started getting
worse. My diagnosis was either a bad universal joint or a
differential beginning to go out. By the time I had moved about 30
miles it was very disturbing. I called Doug Tyler in Dallas at
Industrial Automatic Transmission and he referred me to an associate
in Tulsa. I wasn't going to make it to Tulsa so he referred me to a
couple places, one of which was Interstate Diesel in Henryetta, OK
which was about 12 miles up the road. I headed there and Rex
confirmed my diagnosis. They checked the u-joints and they were
tight. Drained a little oil from the differential and going from a
few small pieces of metal on the plug to feeling a piece of a gear
in the bottom of the case. They tore it down and a large chunk was
gone out of the ring gear and one tooth on the pinion. It is going
to Tulsa for re-build early in the morning. Hope to have it back
tomorrow evening and be back on the road the day after.

Seems like a nice group of guys here. We are camping in front
of the shop with the rear up in the air.

Hopefully the trip to Oshkosh and beyond will be less eventfull
after this. (bg)

R.E. (Ron) Marabito, Dallas, TX 92WB40
Moderator camping in Henryetta, OK